It should not come as any surprise that Vice-President Joe Biden's Commission on Gun Violence delivered 19 recommendations on how to deal with... gun violence, with the key word being "gun." Despite much ado about a meeting late last week with video game industry executives, trade groups, and five researchers, Biden didn't seem all that interested in taking on the industry but did tell those gathered at the meeting that the video game industry needed to improve its image with the general public.

It makes sense that Biden didn't point the finger at the video game industry, because he would likely have to also point his finger at Hollywood - and at least one of his old colleagues (former Democratic Conn. Senator Chris Dodd, who now serves as the top guy at the Motion Picture Association of America) would not have been very happy about that. But even putting that aside, maybe violent video games were not mentioned in Biden's recommendations to the President because there never was any correlation between the tragedy that happened at Sandy Hook Elementary last month and the shooter playing violent video games....

You can read more about his actual recommendations on guns and gun control on Politico.

Hurray for end-runs around the legislative process, ignoring checks and balances, and curtailing constitutional freedoms? I'm sorry, but I'm pretty disappointed with the slant GP has been taking on this issue lately. It should not be an either/or proposition whether you support the First or the Second Amendment. There's no reason we can't respect both.

This article is actually pretty neutral, especially in that is it calling Biden out for a conflict of interest working in the favour of most people in the game industry.

As an aside, you should search wikipedia for "hostile media effect" as I think it applies here.

Finally, the belief that every passage in the constitution could always serve the best interests of Americans indefinitely actually seems both naive and silly. While the second amendment had its place, once upon a time, it is absolutely acceptable for the populace to challenge its relevance in modern society.

It is also acceptable for those challenging to have it changed or abolished to lose the fight. That said, at this point it would take an amendment to get rid of it and since it would require a 3/4th state approval, it is a very long shot.

Thing is, I'm ok with people owning functional gun replicas of the guns used at the time the constitution was signed. The kind of firing rate we're talking about has nothing to do with an automatic gun, and the bullets have nothing to do with some of the monsters currently available. I find that this is likely the place where the discussion should start. Was the intent to arm every citizen with a long range weapon or to give them weapons with which they could devastate half a town?

...from their own government. And that's the point. It just doesn't match now. The US Army, if it decided to use its full might to squash the people, most likely could (albeit I don't know how'd they do on an occupation front.) But the thing is, it's nearly impossible for the entire army to turn on its people at once and at that point, what relevance will the stockpile of weapon in your granary do? Also, do you plan a revolution soon? With a country of millions of people, it's going to take quite a lot of preparation if you're not going to end up just being terrorists attacking the other citizens. At which point, again, you'll probably have access to so many alternative method that using guns might not be the best idea. In the meanwhile, however, gun crimes in the US are so ridiculously high when compared with the rest of the western world that you have to take it into account.

To be fair, GP, to expect this out of Biden is anything BUT a no-brainer. The Vice President, in even asking representatives from the gaming industry to be a part of this, has not-so-subtly pointed a finger at gaming as a cause, despite all of the evidence to the contrary.

I also agree with you in principle. But given that people do tend to be naive and emotional in their reactions to games, there are probably some positive things the industry could do. They had been doing some great educational outreach with the Parents Teachers Association and state attorney generals. I think they got complacent after Brown v EMA which is understandable, but this reminds the industry and all of us we need to be ready for the next opportunity for people the point the finger at an easy scapegoat. Doing some proactive things to combat ignorance can only help.

If you expect people to pull themselves out of ignorance...yeah good luck with that. ;)